Thursday, May 14, 2020

CHANGE
IN LABOUR LAWS

During
its first term, the Modi led BJP government fast tracked the process of dismantling the labour laws that
provided some protection to the workers, though to a very small section of them.
It embarked upon codification of the 44 central labour laws into 4 codes. When
this met with stiff resistance from all central trade unions with massive
countrywide strikes, it was the BJP led state governments that carried the
baton to amend labour laws in their respective states, Rajasthan taking the
lead. BJP government at the centre directed
all state governments to follow suit.

After returning to power with increased
mandate, labour law amendment was again taken up by the BJP government led by
Modi as a priority. All the labour code bills were introduced in Parliament. But,
despite its majority in Lok Sabha, BJP government could pass only the Code on
Wages. Even as it wanted to push through the others - the Code on Occupational
Health and Safety and Working Conditions, the Code on Industrial Relations and
the Code on Social Security - it was compelled to refer them to the
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour. Before it could get them enacted,
the Corona pandemic struck.

The lockdown imposed to contain the
pandemic brought the entire economy, which was already sliding, to a halt. It wreaked
havoc with the lives and livelihoods of the workers, particularly the migrant
workers and the unorganised sector workers. This was seen, by the distorted minds
of the ruling classes and their pen pushers, as an opportunity to crush
workers’ rights, shove them into slavery and protect their own profits. Again
the lead was taken by the BJP ruled state governments, with the silent approval
and blessing of Prime Minister Modi and his government. One by one BJP led
state governments took up the process of nullifying all labour laws; state
governments led by the Congress or other regional parties also followed.

The BJP led Uttar Pradesh government
has promulgated an ordinance nullifying almost all labour laws in the state for
a period of three years. All establishments in the state are now exempted from
all the 38 labour laws in vogue, except four.

The chief minister of BJP ruled Madhya
Pradesh announced that his government was going to follow his counterpart in
Uttar Pradesh to annul labour laws for 1000 days and liberate the employers. New
establishments in the state will be exempt from their obligation under the
Factories Act, Madhya Pradesh Industrial Relations Act, Industrial Disputes
Act, Contract Labour Act etc through appropriate amendments by executive order
or ordinance. They have been assured that there will be no labour department’s
intervention in the establishment during this period; no inspections; only self
certification. They can hire and fire workers as per their choice. Nobody can
prevent them if they want to fire existing workers and hire new workers at
lower wages. Trade unions will not be allowed to raise workers’ issues or
bargain with the management. Employers are even exempted from payment of Rs 80
per worker to the Madhya Pradesh Labour Welfare Board.

Not to be left behind, the BJP state
government in Gujarat reportedly decided to initiate similar measures to give
freedom to the employers from the imaginary clutches of labour laws for a
period of 1200 days, i.e. more than three years.

The state cabinet in Assam, again ruled
by BJP, decided to implement Fixed Term Employment and exempt large number of
employers from following labour laws like the Factories Act and the Contract
Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act. It has decided to increase the threshold
number of workers for applicability of the Factories Act from 20 to 40 in the
case of factories not using power and from 10 to 20 in the case of those using
power. This will throw large number of workers in the manufacturing units out
of legal protection under the Act related to occupational safety, health and
welfare.

As it is, most of the factories in our
country do not have proper ventilation facilities, toilets, crèches, potable
drinking water etc. Thousands of workers die every year of industrial accidents
due to the neglect of the employers, the latest being the accident in LG
Polymers in Visakhapatnam in which 12 people in the nearby village died and hundreds
became seriously ill. Besides, when the economy is being opened up even as the
fight against the corona virus needs to be continued, it is essential to ensure
safe workplaces with facilities for washing hands, sanitisation and physical
distancing etc. Instead of doing this, the BJP led governments are putting
workers’ safety and lives to greater risk.

Similarly, the threshold for the
applicability of Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 in Assam will
be raised from the present 20 to 50. Contractors can limit the number of their
workers to 49 and exploit them with unlimited freedom.

The BJP government in Karnataka is also
on the same path. It is reportedly considering relaxing labour laws related to
minimum wages, working hours and also others. It has suddenly transferred the
Principal Secretary of its Labour Department, who was reportedly considered a
thorn in its attempts.

In addition, several
state governments – not only BJP led ones as in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Assam but also Congress led governments in Punjab
and Rajasthan as well as the BJD led Odisha government have increased daily
working hours from 8 to 12 and from 48 to 72 in a week with 12 hour shifts. The
BJP led governments in Karnataka and Tripura too are joining the bandwagon. Tripura
government has also decided to increase the threshold number of workers in
establishments to 300 for the employers to hire and fire as per their wishes.

On 9th
May the Congress government in Punjab withdrew its own notification issued on 1st
May increasing DA to industrial workers, which would have increased the minimum
wages of workers by over Rs 350 from 1st March.

It is highly
significant that in this mad rush to amend labour laws to satisfy the
employers, it was only the LDF government in Kerala, where the state labour
minister has categorically asserted that the state was not going to amend the
labour laws in favour of the employers.

It is to be
noted that all these are in total violation of the ILO conventions to which
India is a signatory. The first convention that ILO, which India signed
stipulates 8 hours of work in a day and 48 hours of work in a week.India is also a signatory to the Tripartite
Consultation International Labour Standards Convention, 1976, which requires it
to consult stakeholders – employers and workers’ bodies – before taking any
policy decision. But the state governments did not engage with trade unions,
thus violating the Tripartite Consultation Convention C144. This is not the
first time that the BJP government led by Modi is ignoring tripartism. CITU had
to raise this with the ILO, during the first tenure of the Modi government.

That the
government is acting as per the demands, rather dictates of the employers is
very clear. Representatives of 12 employers’ associations and industries
including Council of Indian Employers, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and PHD Chamber of
Commerce and Industry have demanded government of India to suspend labour laws for
the next two to three years and to increase working hours to 12 per day. The
Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry demanded that trade unions be
prohibited for at least one year. They complained that minimum wages were too
high and bringing them down was nearly impossible; and they reiterated their
long time demand for freedom to hire and fire.

These demands and the response of the
governments are nothing short of cruel. The corona pandemic has further
increased the distress of the working class whose situation was already
worsening due to the economic crisis. The workers are now facing unprecedented
deprivations. ILO has estimated that half the workers globally would lose their
jobs; in India around 40 crores workers are estimated to be pushed into
poverty. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has reported that 120
million Indian have lost their jobs. Unemployment rate has risen to around 27%.
Crores of migrant and other workers who have lost their jobs suddenly find
themselves homeless and hungry; lakhs of migrant workers have been walking
hundreds of kilometres to their homes, hundreds succumbed to exhaustion and
accidents on their way.

It is in such conditions that the
employers and the governments serving them are trying to push workers into
conditions of slavery. The employers don’t want to pay them wages; but they
also won’t allow them to go back to their native places either. They want the
workers to be available, homeless, starving but ready to work with low wages
and without any legal protection whenever the establishments are open. But,
that is what capitalism is. In their rush for profits, capitalists trample
underfoot workers, human beings, nature, anybody and anything; no feelings of justice,
humanity or morality here.

This atrocious
annulment of labour laws, meant to push workers into slavery is being done
ostensibly in the name of attracting investment and supported by some in the
name of weaning foreign firms from China. In the context of the corona
pandemic, ‘China has become unpopular and many companies would exit from China.
India should take this as a big opportunity, attract these firms and replace
China as the ‘factory of the world’ – so goes the argument.

Commending the UP, MP and Gujarat
government’s initiatives as ‘one of the boldest and bravest initiatives since
reforms in 1991’, Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Ayog recommended further reforms in
other sectors as well. ‘It’s now or never; states are driving bold reforms; we
will never get this opportunity; seize it’, he egged on the corporates.

However, this
argument that foreign companies would relocate themselves from China to India
is totally misplaced. Even Indian firms are not investing in the country,
particularly during the last few years. The major reason is the deteriorating
purchasing power of the people and the inability to sell the manufactured
products. Further suppressing demand
through these measures will only worsen the disease.

In addition there is no empirical
evidence that prohibiting labour laws or reducing wages would lead to economic
growth. In Rajasthan, while the labour law amendments of the former BJP
government were hailed by the corporates, what followed was fall in wages,
increase in unemployment and decline in the state GDP. The Economic Survey of
2018-19 stressed that a high minimum wage does not impact employment
generation. Besides, it is not only the trade unions, even eminent legal
experts point out that ‘to say our labour laws are strictly implemented is a
myth and thus to infer that their implementation is the primary cause for
losses in productivity would be very erroneous’.

Within
the serious constraints of the lockdown the working class in the country has
made it clear they were not going to take these attacks lying down. In almost
all the states wherever these changes were being carried out or being
considered, in Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra,
Telangana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar etc protests were held in front of
the labour commissioners’ officers, work places, or houses etc, by CITU
independently or jointly along with other trade unions. On 14th May
the central trade unions in the joint trade union platform discussed on line
about the future course of action to resist these measures. The secretariat
meeting of CITU scheduled to be held on line on 15th May will
finalise its campaign and struggle programmes on the basis of the call of its
16th conference ‘to defy and resist’ anti worker policies of the
government.

These attacks on the hard won rights of
the working class, its display of authoritarianism are part of the attacks on
the basic democratic and human rights of the toiling people by the desperate capital
in crisis. These must be defeated and reversed through united struggles, not
only of the working class but by the entire toiling masses.